meritocrat

It does not. How does making a racist comment infringe on others' rights?

meritocrat

So does that mean I can dislike people for having blonde or red hair?

Psychic

sorry but i think we've lost track here! are we talking about the people you hate! our debate is about Racism. So my point is: the avoidant behavior stems from thought (which you advocate for its freedom). If you have the right to hate a certain race, and you are saying "I avoid people I hate" then you are saying "that I'll be avoiding people of this race as much as I can for the rest of my life". now if we are to generalize your freedom of thought, then you are practically speaking about a whole race ignoring another race!!! does this sound like common sense to you. do you really think you can demand to have "the freedom of thought"?

because you don't have any problems when you are treating people of your own race, that's for sure. so your statement about treating everyone with certain level of dignity, it meant to be a rule when dealing with people of the other races. that's make the difference.


BTW there's alot of noise in this thread don't you think!

Misso

What are people's rights? Like bd-from-kg said in his post, there are several levels. Why would freedom of thought be a right where freedom not to be insulted isn't?
"Natural laws" such as freedom of thought and expression are very tricky since they're not written down anywhere. Everyone can decide for themself what the "natural rights" are, and can choose to include "not being offended based on racism" as one of those rights. Why would freedom of expression be a right where others aren't? What are the criteria for something to be a right?

I just noticed you said "As a believer in freedom of thought, I feel that people have a right to hold and express racist beliefs". Freedom of thought is different from freedom of expression though. I too believe in freedom of thought, I much less believe in freedom of expression.

For all I care, yes. But expressing dislike is something different than feeling dislike.



Yes, you are right. The thing is that I hate people based on their behaviour, which - I think - they can influnce. Personally I believe that hating somone based on criteria that are beyond control of the hated person, is complete and utter nonsense.
This way of thought could indeed lead to expressing racism, if one hated a person based on race. However, it might not be infringing on people's rights. I don't think even believers in natural freedom in it's most broad sense would recognize some sort of "right of not being avoided". Next to that, I'm not always avoiding people I hate. Like I said, when I can't avoid them I do the "smile and nod" thing - like I do at some people I don't hate too, just like how I avoid people: some because I hate them, some because I just choose to avoid them.
So yes, people will be treated differently based on my way, but not exclusively different, i.e. the avoided group isn't completely avoided on racist grounds.

meritocrat

Why? Freedom of thought is simply the right to form and hold opinions. Freedom of expression is the right to voice them. Why can't people be free to voice opinions?

Misso

Because they can be offensive. I think I made that pretty clear by now.
As long as the freedom of expression isn't harming anyone it's fine, but when you take freedom of expression (in the context of racism) too far, you get genocide.

Pyrrho

The problem with that is that no one holds beliefs that do not affect their actions. I refer you to:

http://ajburger.homestead.com/files/book.htm

Of course, the connection between beliefs and actions is a complex one, but that does not mean that we have beliefs that are irrelevant to our actions.

Psychic

while I am very convinced of the notion that: thought can't be separated from action, but you are not serious about refering us to read a whole book! to get the point!
:banghead:

It would be highly appreciated if you can give us a shortcut and post your argument directly.

meritocrat

I disagree.

A racist could hate blacks (or whites even) yet commit no action that infringes on the rights of blacks or whites.

Pyrrho

Do you really expect complex ideas to be reduced to a few sentences? Are all of those who write lengthy books merely slow to get to the point? Besides, it is a very short book to which I referred everyone.

Okay, I will give a brief version here, but still refer you to that book for something approaching the full explanation. Is that okay with you?

To get us started, here is a quote from Burger:

To bring us back to the topic at hand, when someone is a racist, is there anyone who believes that such a person, even if they attempt to hide their racism, will always succeed in doing so? Would you trust someone who is racist against your race to decide whether you will be hired for or fired from a position? Would you trust such a person to deal with you fairly in all circumstances? But since you are not arguing against this idea, let me proceed to an outline of the argument of Clifford (and, to some extent, Burger) that is relevant to these matters. Please pardon me if I now borrow the occasional phrase from either source, and let me now acknowledge that this is not original here.

Our beliefs affect our actions, and our actions affect others. Consequently, what we individually believe is NOT merely a private matter concerning ourselves alone, but is a matter of public concern. [To avoid confusion, when I say, "what we individually believe is NOT merely a private matter concerning ourselves alone, but is a matter of public concern", this is NOT to say that beliefs should be legislated (as if passing a law would change people's beliefs!).] This is most obvious in the cases of politicians and legislators, who enact laws that govern us. But even in people of lesser authority, their beliefs affect others, as Clifford observed:

In the case of racism, even the occasional racist remark encourages others in whatever racist tendencies they may have, and will encourage them to commit racist acts. However much American culture may promote the mythology of the Individual, we are all influenced by others, especially during our formative years.

If we are to avoid harming others, we need to be careful about what we believe (remember, our beliefs affect our actions, and our actions affect others). If we have false beliefs, we are more likely to "accidentally" harm others. So we should be careful and try to avoid false beliefs. The only way to be careful about what we believe is to believe only when we have evidence in favor of our belief (Clifford says "sufficient evidence", though I personally prefer Burger's version, that we should "proportion our belief to the evidence").

So to tie this back in with the beginning of this thread, when "meritocrat" states:

following the reasoning expressed above, I must disagree, unless the "right" in question is a purely legal one.


If a "whole book" seems too much, I recommend reading Clifford's essay only. (Of course, I do not advise people to refrain from reading the whole book.) A couple of words about it, in order to avoid some common misconceptions about Clifford, that are probably due, in part, to people reading severely abridged versions of his essay (read Burger's Preface for more on this).

When Clifford says "sufficient evidence", this does NOT mean "absolute proof":

So Clifford is being quite explicit in saying that we may believe things without an absolute proof. This occurs at the beginning of section III.

Another point worth mentioning is that Clifford does not confuse beliefs with actions:

This occurs in the second paragraph of section II. Since most reprints of Clifford's essay do not include anything except most or all of section I, many readers have been confused on these points.